Google really needs to learn how to launch phones. Weeks after Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich were demonstrated to the more than eager public, the phone and the OS have yet to appear.

Although no firm launch dates were set, the Galaxy Nexus was expected to launch in mid-November, but all rumoured launch days have come and gone, with no launch in sight.

Business Insider is now reporting that Verizon has confirmed the launch was pushed back to December, but there is still no word on the exact date. In the meantime European retailers are also stating that the phone should be available in KW48 or KW49, or the week of November 28 at the earliest.

It's worth noting that the new Nexus has been on sale in Britain for about a week now, but availability is limited to say the least. Hopefully Google will manage to fully implement Flash support and resolve some pesky volume bugs by then.

3G networksimply called Three has already listed Galaxy Nexus in its pre Xmas portfolio. We tried to look for some new signs of shipping schedules and found that Samsung Galaxy Nexus 16GB should be available as of next week starting at €542.

These are European contract free prices that will get you an unlocked phone and if all goes well some of these shops might send you a phone as soon as next week, week 47 of 2011 that is. We are sure that some of the mobile networks in Europe are planning to launch subsidised Galaxy Nexus but as of press time, Three UK is the only one that we could found. Subsidized phones as many are aware are much cheaper than contact free, as long as you are ready for a commitment.

Some phones are listed for sub €530 price but these shops still don’t have any shipping indications. Amazon also doesn’t commit to a shipping date, just tells you it will ship as soon as it has them.

This will without a doubt be the first Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich phone that money can buy, and lovers of the vanilla Android experience might want to go for this one rather than some Android wrapped in a custom skin.

And the wait is almost over, the next generation Google's phone is Nexus S. The S probably doesn’t stand for Samsung, who made this phone for them despite Google not saying that on the google.com/nexus website.

As many have suggested before, the phone has a 1GHz Samsung hummingbird but it has the old A8 single core hardware, nothing in dual core area. Many were disappointed us included.

Google also says that Nexus S has a dedicated GPU, something that can accelerate games, browsing and watching video. Samsung Galaxy S has PowerVR SGX540 capable of processing 90 million triangles/sec and iPhone 4 is rumoured to have a PowerVR SGX535 graphics chip that’s capable of handling 28 million triangles per second. We believe that Nexus S has the same PowerVR SGX540 graphics subsystem.

Playstation 2 can process 30 Million Polygons per Second (50-pixel triangle with Z and Alpha) and can do 75 Million Polygons per Second (small polygon). For comparison sake, Playstation 3 should be able to process 250 million poligons so it can give you the idea that games on Nexus S and other Superphones might get four times better than the now legendary Rage for iPhone 4.

The phone has 16GB iNAND flash memory and we don’t know about RAM but it should have plenty of it since it runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). Yes this is the first time that we officially see that Gingerbread gets Android 2.3.

Nexus S has 5 Mexapixel (2560x1920) camera, can record in 720x480 format and supports H.264, H.263 and MPEG4 video recording. The camera has auto focus, flash and the phone has yet another front facing camera in good old 640x480, a.k.a VGA resolution.

Google promises talk time up to 6.7 hours on 3G and 14 hours on 2G with standby time up to 17.8 days on 3G and 29.7 days on (no one uses it anymore) 2G. It comes with 1500 mAH Lithium Ion battery, measures 63mm x 123.9mm x 10.88mm and weights 129g.

The phone specification awfully reminds us of Samsung Galaxy i9000 but one of the major differences is the Near Field Communication (NFC) chip. Wikipedia says that the “Near Field Communication or NFC, is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimetre (around 4 inches) distance”. NFC should let you pay for transportation or other things; ultimately it should be something that might replace your credit card, at least to some extent.

Google says the following about NFC. “Nexus S can read information from "smart" tags, or everyday objects that have NFC chips in them. These can be anything from stickers and movie posters to t-shirts.” You should make your own conclusions on what can you do with it. You can probably scan the poster and see the video trailer maybe but hey can’t we do it today with ancient technology called bar code?

Google also hints at Internet calling (VoIP/ SIP support), one touch word selection and improved copy paste. Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) also brings some well known usual suspecs including Android Market, Calendar, Gmail,Google Earth, Google Maps with Navigation, Google Search, Google Talk, Google Voice, Voice Actions and YouTube. I guess many have seen all of this with Android 2.2 enabled phones.

Gingerbread also has cleaner and more refined user interface, with new notification bar and new icons. Looks better but nothing spectacular. The keyboard also got improved. Lets not forget the tethering or Portable Wi-Fi hotspot as Google calls this feature. You will be able to connect up to six devices and use your Nexus S as a router, as long as you have a few gigabytes to spare.

So Nexus S is not dual, and except for Android 2.3 and NFC we don’t see much difference between Samsung’s Galaxy S and Google Nexus S “by Samsung”. The key advantage remains however - all the future OS releases will first see the light of the day on Nexus S.

We just got an update that the phone without contract will sell for $529 unlocked or $199 with T-mobile US two-year contract commitment. UK chaps will be able to get this phone after December 20th from Carphone Warehouse.

Nvidia Tegra 2 and any other Cortex ARM A9 dual core phones to come in 2011, all the sudden are starting to look much better.